IT IS our feelings that count: we will never let boring old facts unsettle our emotional certainties. The all-conquering triumph of this attitude, now apparently holding sway in all areas of public — and especially political — life, was demonstrated again and again, the most valuable moral lesson to be gleaned, in the two-part documentary Immigration: How British politics failed (BBC2, from 11 November).

Key players from New Labour’s triumph onwards presented why they had acted and spoken as they did: Sir Tony Blair, eager to capitalise on a time of economic growth, and happy to welcome the only source of skilled workers available — i.e. immigrant foreigners; Lord Blunkett, hailing the enlargement of the EU and incautiously, disastrously, claiming that there was no limit to the number of newcomers we could assimilate; editors of popular newspapers admitting how eagerly their scare stories of immigrants’ swamping our housing and health were received, playing their part in whipping up antagonism; Lord Cameron, grateful for the statistics provided by right-wing pressure groups, who, despite all protestations of objectivity, were surely fuelled by chauvinistic prejudice; and constantly popping up, a malevolent Cheshire Cat with baleful grin, Nigel Farage, delighted by the march of public opinion.

Of course, feelings do count; proper leadership depends on treating them as real, a genuine factor, as important as the annual accounts’ cold figures. Both must inform good policy and priorities. How easy it is with hindsight to shake our heads and tut over previous errors! It is rather harder to do better ourselves, now.

For a model of parish life, consider the Indian purple frog. The female does all the work, carrying the far smaller male on her back as she seeks somewhere to raise their offspring. His sole purpose is, apparently, to fertilise her 2000 eggs — and then she carries him back, and they both disappear into the mud for another 48 weeks till the next mating season. Sir David Attenborough’s Asia (BBC1, from 3 November) is full of such nuggets, gorgeously delightful, if you can stomach all the sex and violence.

Sex, violence, and male domination drive the series Wolf Hall: The mirror and the light (BBC1, from 10 November). Will Henry VIII succeed in fathering a male heir? Whom will he execute next? Does anyone dare to thwart his will? This realisation of the climax of Hilary Mantel’s trilogy is quite simply superlative television, art at the highest level.

The sensational events do not dominate: this is grown-up TV, to be relished and savoured, daring so much silence, the still spaces in between as powerful as speech and action. Like the novels, this reimagines Tudor England with absolute conviction, creating a world both quite unlike — and as utterly familiar as — our own.